


A Short Time To Go (the At Least I Never Slept With Lumbergh remix)

by keysmash



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: kamikazeremix, Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-04
Updated: 2010-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-05 19:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmash/pseuds/keysmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam wakes up and is nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Short Time To Go (the At Least I Never Slept With Lumbergh remix)

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by [](http://bansidhe.livejournal.com/profile)[**bansidhe**](http://bansidhe.livejournal.com/). Title from Sam Cooke and Office Space. A remix of [Long Way to Get There](http://essenceofmeanin.livejournal.com/19717.html) by [](http://essenceofmeanin.livejournal.com/profile)[**essenceofmeanin**](http://essenceofmeanin.livejournal.com/).

"Welcome to McDonalds, would you like to try one of our McCafés today?" The girl at the counter doesn't make eye contact. There's a framed picture of an iced coffee behind her, with ice cubes as big as her head.

He shakes his head. "Large black coffee, three biscuits, and grape jam please," he says.

She nods and pokes in his order. "Great, and how about trying one of our McCafés with that?"

He frowns with his cash in hand. He'll have about fifteen bucks after this, not counting the credit cards under four different names he found in his wallet. "Uh, no. No thanks." She nods again, but her expression doesn't change.

His food's out by the time she finishes making his change. He shovels the tiny, paper packets of salt into his bag without thinking about it while the people around him take a few napkins, a few things of ketchup. He guesses he likes things salty. The restaurant's crowded, no place to sit without risking someone reading over his shoulder, and he knows better than to eat in the play place.

There's a bench outside. He sits there alone. The pile of salt is still in his bag, underneath the wrappers, when he finishes eating – it had been gross on a biscuit, and after trying that, he didn't test it in his coffee. He goes through his pockets there on the street, because he can't think of a better place to do it.

Worldly possessions: a cell phone with a dead battery. A wallet with $17.89 in cash and lots of credit cards, none of which match the three IDs tucked behind the plastic view-window. A sprig of herbs and a lock of hair, tied together with a silky blue ribbon. A motel keycard, worn so smooth he can't read the name or any of the information below the magnetic strip. Two ballpoint pens. A condom. Something strapped to his ankle, under his jeans. And, tucked beneath the hoodie zipped under his coat, pressed close to his heart, a leather book full of handwritten notes.

"Huh," he says. He flips it open to the first page, without bothering to get out of the wind, and starts to read.

Remembering is like calling up the details of a dream when you've already been awake for a few hours, but some stuff is crystal clear when Sam – his name is Sam, even if little in his wallet backs him up – closes the journal.

His watch has stopped. Other than the knife at his shin, he's unarmed. He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know where the car is. He doesn't know where –

Sam drinks the final cold sips of coffee while he goes through the back of the journal, where one style of handwriting gives way to two others. It's been more of a resource than anything else recently, and without his phone or his watch to give him the date, the journal's no help. There's nothing about whatever they were hunting last. He's tucked it back into his coat when a guy runs past him, dashing down the sidewalk in an ill-fitting suit and a pea coat that flaps out behind him.

Sam looks up, idly curious about whether the guy'll make his bus, and it's Dean, Dean with a messenger bag slung over one shoulder, and new, uncreased dress shoes on his feet. He runs like he's not used to the activity, and he doesn't look towards Sam at all.

"Dean!" Sam calls, already on his feet, but Dean continues. He skids to a stop at the bus station. The bus had been pulling away, but when it slows, and the doors crank open again, Sam can see Dean's relief from down the block.

He leaves his coffee on the bench and follows Dean aboard. The driver glares at him when he doesn't have the right change immediately. Dean still ignores him.

.

Dean stays on the bus through four stops. Sam follows when he climbs off, deep downtown, and heads towards one high-rise clustered among all the others. He bypasses the entrance and smokes three cigarettes around a corner before going inside. Sam sits on another bench and watches. He'd woken up on a bench; he can't remember being in a place with so many benches before.

He draws too many curious glances when he tries to tail Dean inside – people checking out the hood peeking from underneath his coat, the mud on his boots, something on his face. Sam wipes at his mouth but his hand doesn't come away with any crumbs.

He pretends to take a call when Dean signs in at a security station and has to swipe some sort of card before being admitted further into the lobby. Sam watches him enter an elevator, pushed close with too many other people, and then the door slides closed, and they're each alone again.

The directory near the front doors lists too many companies to be able to guess which one is Dean's. Sam goes back to the bench and waits.

He hadn't come up with car keys that morning, and he doesn't know why Dean would ever take public transit if the Impala was available. Sam wishes for his laptop, for a handgun to hide somewhere on his person, for a change of clothes.

Dean smokes again at lunch, leaning against the side of the building, and he's got an energy drink in his free hand but no food. Sam wonders when Dean took up smoking; Sam wonders if he could be having a psychotic break of some kind.

Sam manages to find a pay phone when Dean heads back inside, and he calls Bobby. There's no answer. The phone's next to a bus stop, and Sam picks up a brochure from the bus stop listing routes and rates. He studies its not-to-scale map of downtown. He doesn't think he's heard of this town before, much less been here, so he pockets the paper.

Dean stays inside all day. Sam's bought a hot dog from a street vendor and tested out one of the credit cards at a coffee shop – its limit was high enough to clear a latté, at least, not that that helped much – before Dean comes outside, with the last of a group of people. He's walking slower than in the morning, and he's not talking to anyone.

Sam tails him home. They drive east during the sunset, so it's dark when Dean walks seven blocks from his stop to a mom n pop grocery store. Sam follows him through the aisles as he buys frozen chicken, instant rice, skim milk. Sam picks up two packets of ramen and an apple, and he's careful to check out before Dean does so he can wait for his brother on the sidewalk.

Dean's apartment is three blocks back in the other direction. Sam eats his apple and pretends to text for a few minutes while he memorizes the address. He watches the windows but none of the lights turn on after Dean heads inside. Maybe his room faces another direction; maybe he's sitting alone in the dark.

Sam leaves his core on the sidewalk and heads back to the bus stop.

He doesn't know what time it is, but he's missed the last bus, which leaves at 9:00. There are trees every twenty feet or so, surrounded by tidy metal tree guards, and the streets are well lit. Other than Sam, no one's really out. There aren't going to be any good – by which Sam means bad – motels around here.

It takes him three and a half hours to backtrack to downtown. Sam uses the card that looks the newest and gets a room at the first rattrap he finds. It's more expensive than he'd like, and the room comes with free WiFi and actual mints on the pillows. Sam orders two huge pizzas and spreads the boxes over the bed closest to the door. There's basic cable, but the higher channels are all staticky.

The heater works fine. Sam takes a shower, hangs his clothes in the steamy bathroom in some attempt to clean them, and sleeps in his boxers.

.

Sam wakes up early enough to ride one bus a stop past the McDonalds, then to catch the next in order to ride back to Dean. He's got on a different suit today. The hems of his pants ride up too high, and almost brush the top of his socks. His nose is red and he's not wearing gloves. Sam hunches into his hoodie and watches.

Dean doesn't glance over on the way to work, or during his lunch break, but he frowns at Sam that evening, on the ride home. Sam cuts his eyes away without otherwise responding and Dean goes back to staring out the window. His hair is carefully gelled and combed. It looks exactly the same as it had that morning.

Sam has to press one to charge the long distance fees to his room before the motel's phone will let him call Bobby. Wherever they are, it's far from South Dakota. Sam counts rings until he reaches triple digits before he hangs up.

He finds a library in the phonebook and rips the page out. The downtown branch is somewhere in the square of streets shown on the public transit map, and if they don't offer Internet access Sam doesn't know where else he'll start.

.

He stands in the aisle, the next morning on the bus, and steals Dean's wallet when he heads back to his seat. Dean sits in the same place every time so far, and he heads there without noticing the hand inside his pocket, riding over his ass. No one else seems to realize, either, and Sam flips through the wallet like it's his own.

Dean's info all lists his actual name, which is a start. The _vision correction necessary_ and _organ donor_ boxes on his license are both checked. He's written _ask for ID_ on the back of his two credit cards instead of signing them. He has seven bucks in cash but no change, no condom, no pictures. There's a stack of business cards tucked into the back, listing him as an Associate Data Technician, and Sam slips one into his own pocket.

It's not until Dean's stop is in sight that Sam realizes he has no idea how to give the wallet back. He winds up slamming into Dean and stealing his pack of cigarettes with one hand to distract from using the other hand to slip the wallet back into Dean's back pocket. Sam follows Dean down to the street. Dean pats his chest down, and when he gapes over his shoulder at Sam, eyes wide above dark circles, Sam can only smirk and walk off.

.

He has to sign his name and give up his ID as collateral before the librarian will show him to the computer lab. The computer's wallpaper is a list of all the things he's not allowed to do.

All of Sam's email accounts have been suspended. He goes through his slew of Facebook and MySpace accounts next, but none of those fared any better. He makes a new gmail address and emails Bobby. Two minutes later, he gets a notification that the message wasn't deliverable. Seven minutes after that, he gets a message from Bobby after all: _I don't know what you are but if you know what's good for you, you'll pick some other boys to impersonate before I get there to stop you myself._

Sam half-heartedly researches shape shifters after that, but he then he gives up. He checks the available credit on all the cards in his wallet, and then the account status on his phone number. There's enough to last him indefinitely, it feels like, if he's only paying for food and bus fare and a week at a time at the motel. His phone's even better – paid through the rest of the year and still active. If the phone works once he charges the battery, he's set.

He learns the date. There must be a cold snap going on, because it's a few weeks later than he'd guessed.

The librarian frowns at him when he comes to the desk to sign out.

"What was your name again?" she asks.

"Sam," he says.

She raises her eyebrows now, so that the wrinkles in her forehead smooth out and then reform in new combinations. "That's your last name?"

"Oh, no. Winchester."

She tilts her head to the side, skeptical, as she looks through her drawer. Too late, Sam wonders if that's actually the name on his license.

"Ah," she finally says. She puts the card on the counter and slides it to him with one finger. "I didn't recognize you with your hair so –" She breaks off, flushing, and Sam fights the urge to tuck what were bangs, when they were shorter, behind his ears. He thinks he should make more use of the free toiletries, maybe get a haircut. "Not like your picture," she finishes.

"Yeah," Sam says, "thanks." He sticks his ID into his wallet without bothering to file it back in its slot, and heads out.

The closest electronics store is an AT&amp;T place three blocks away. It's close enough to the library that the bus overshoots it by another three blocks, but far enough away that Sam gets wet through when it starts raining. He combs his fingers through his hair and figures it'll help that, at least.

The AT&amp;T guy balks at selling him nothing but a charger.

"If you sign a contract with us now, you can get an entire new phone for only fifty bucks, once you get your rebate in the mail, and that comes with a charger."

"Yeah," Sam says. It's his third time through the spiel. "I get that. I already have a phone, though, and a plan, so all I need is the charger."

The guy frowns. "All right," he says, and turns to pull a charger from the wall behind him. He rings Sam up. It's just over eight bucks. The guy wraps it in tissue paper and then puts it into a bag. When Sam reaches for it, he pulls it back slightly and looks to each side, then lowers his voice. "If you change your mind, though, come back and see me, and I'll put this towards that contract."

Sam finds him a grin and nods. "Sure thing."

"It's just about forty bucks more," the guy calls after Sam, on his way out. Sam raises a hand without turning and pushes out the door.

.

It takes all night for his phone to charge.

Ruby doesn't answer. Bobby's lines have now been disconnected. Sam never had a number for Castiel, but he guesses that would work just as well.

He calls Dean's old number. It goes straight to his voicemail, making Sam guess that the phone itself is dead somewhere, and Sam's heart clenches at the familiar, cocky message. He calls back three times, then tries Dad's phone for the hell of it.

The number on Dean's business card goes to the company voicemail system. Sam guesses at the options until an automated voice tells him Dean's voicemail is temporarily unavailable. He hangs up. There's a home number listed on the card as well; it goes to a sex line.

.

Sam waits at Dean's stop downtown the next day. He watches Dean stand and work his way out of the bus, and has a cigarette lit for him when he steps to the sidewalk.

"Hey, man," he says, and holds it out. Dean looks Sam up and down, but takes the cigarette anyway. His fingertips are red against the cold, and his hands shake slightly as he takes that first, best, drag.

"Thanks," Dean says. He heads quickly to the building, but Sam matches his steps anyway.

"What do you do up there, all day?" Sam jerks his head up, towards the high rise.

Dean shrugs. He doesn't make eye contact. "Data entry," he says. "Bunch of bullshit paperwork."

"Cool," Sam says, meaning _not_. Dean snorts and keeps going. "So look, you about ready to get out of here?"

Dean looks over, out of the corner of his eye. He speeds his steps.

"I mean, I've been thinking about how we could have gotten here." Sam thinks about paging through the journal, with grease on his fingers and the wind on his face, and then remembering. "I don't think it's a djinn, because we'd both be a lot happier than we are now, and I've never heard anything about a shape shifter taking someone's form and then forgetting about it, so I figure it's gotta be either an angel or a demon." He pauses, guesses, then reaches to grab Dean's elbow. "But I dunno, what do you think? Heaven or hell get us here?"

Dean jerks away, hard enough that he stumbles in the other direction. "I don't carry any cash," he says, and Sam snorts because he knows that's a lie. Dean stares at him a moment longer before turning and hightailing into the building. Sam sticks his hands deep into his pockets and stands his ground there on the sidewalk. He can see Dean hurry through the crowd, can see him talking to the uniform at the security desk, and when the guard stands to look out the windows, Sam lifts his hand before rejoining the crowd.

.

He checks all the impound lots in the city. He washes his hair, goes back to the library, and checks the public record of parking violations. He calls around to junkyards and checks for parts, specific year and make. None of them have the Impala.

.

Dean changes his route home. It takes Sam a day or two to catch on; he's walking a block in the other direction to a different bus stop, then taking it past his apartment and cutting through alleys and side streets to get home. Sam rolls his eyes the first time he follows Dean all the way; Sam hadn't been nearly as quiet as he could have, but Dean hadn't turned.

It happens three nights after that. Sam's staying a good ways back, just in case Dean picks tonight to start paying attention, and so he can't do anything but run when someone steps out of the shadows to slam Dean against the building. Dean's struggling uselessly, clawing at the guy's arms like he doesn't know a thing about how to use his body. When Sam gets close, he realizes three things in rapid succession.

It's Bobby – snarling in Latin and filthy, but Bobby just the same.

He's got his arm pressed hard against Dean's throat, and Dean's protests are weakening.

Sam slams into Bobby. He lands hard on the cement but Sam doesn't regret that much when he stays down. He turns to Dean, slumping down the wall, and hauls him up, pats him down.

Dean's throat is blooming bruises already, but his chest rises and falls under Sam's hands. Nothing's sticky, nothing smells too sharply of iron, and he's not pulling away.

"Dean," Sam says. He doesn't even sound like he's out of breath, to himself.

Dean lifts his head and Sam watches his eyes try to dilate for a moment before he hears Bobby shifting on the ground.

"Go," Sam says. Dean stares at him for a moment before obeying. His dress shoes slap noisily against the sidewalk and he runs without looking back.

Bobby's still on his back, but when Sam bends over him he throws liquid in Sam's face anyway. It tastes stale, like water that's been prayed over and then kept too long in a flask, but nothing happens. No smoke, no sizzle, no burning flesh. Sam raises his eyebrows and steps closer, to stand next to Bobby's head.

"What the hell," Bobby says. He digs in his coat, and Sam knows that a silver knife or something even less pleasant is next.

"Go home," Sam tells him. Bobby bares his teeth, and Sam lifts one foot, then places it so gently over Bobby's throat. He doesn't press down, but Bobby stills. "I don't want to hurt you, Bobby, but if you don't return the favor, I damn well will."

He walks off without checking behind him. He can hear Bobby panting, but not trying to move.

.

Sam takes the bus to Dean's usual stop in the morning. He sees Dean recognize him from far down the block, but he walks up to Sam without slowing. The bruises are stark against his winter-pale skin, prickly where he hadn't shaved his neck, but they wouldn't have looked out of place a few months ago. The tie, neatly knotted, makes them seem worse.

"I'm not supposed to be here," Dean says. It's not a question.

"No," Sam says.

Dean nods. He looks beyond Sam, to the people gathered around the bus stop, then sighs. He pulls his cigarettes out of his pocket and sticks two in his mouth, lights them, then hands one to Sam. Sam coughs a little and Dean snorts.

They stand there while Dean finishes his cigarette, and then Sam's. The bus comes and goes. Dean watches it leave without him, but his expression doesn't change. He grinds the butts under his shoes and then looks up, up at Sam.

"You ready now?" Sam says.

Dean glances over his shoulder, back at his apartment, then nods. "Yeah."

.

He steals a car. Dean looks the other way and they both pretend he's not blushing. Sam pushes them down the road all day, taking them away from the city and towards someplace sunny. He pulls over twice so Dean can vomit, mostly just bile, and a third time to buy him some Tylenol. The bruises get worse.

The keys to the Impala are in Dean's pocket, hooked onto the same ring as an emergency whistle and the key to his apartment. Dean says they don't open anything, that he just carries them out of habit, but Sam recognizes them even though he doesn't tell Dean why.

"You know where we're going?" Dean asks that night, at their motel. They've changed cars twice and stopped for food just as often. He's showered and is propped against the headboard in his boxers and undershirt.

"Not really," Sam says. He turns down the covers on the bed nearest the door and slides under. "You know where we're coming from?"

"Nope." They stare at each other, and then Dean reaches up to turn off the light.


End file.
